I wanted to share my thoughts after viewing this one, which mostly align with what other reviewers have said. This edit is worth seeing for the extra footage it adds, but it has some noticeable flaws that really detract from the experience.
Content:
The choices of things to cut are generally quite sensible, but there are parts that needed to be left in and sometimes the scenes become too choppy or just too fast.
- Removing the plot of Qui-gon’s second bet makes it very strange when Anakin is taken from Tatooine but not Shmi.
- When Anakin is leaving, Shmi asks “What does your heart tell you?” without preface - Anakin’s line “Will I ever see you again?” was cut - so the dialog does not make sense this way.
- I would have liked some additional trims such as: the vendor during the race (interrupts the action), the victory dance/song from the race commentator (too silly), and “Poodoo!” outburst from Sebulba.
- The opening crawl benefits from having the Jedi named, and I like “The Federation of Dissenting Star Systems”, but the rest of the crawl is worded awkwardly and is somewhat incongruous with the usual style.
- Jar Jar absurdity, Darth Sidious / Senator Palpatine mystery, bad child-acting, silly battle-droid talking, and other annoying bits are all trimmed away effectively.
- The added deleted scenes were enjoyable (Sebulba’s flame-jets) and useful (probe droid).
- There was no indication of Darth Sidious’ influence on the Republic, which is significant though not necessarily a problem.
Visual:
Some of the visual edits were really good, but some were quite jarring. I did not notice the various little fixes throughout the movie, which is good, and it is quite impressive work, judging by the provided comparison images. However, Tatooine has some serious problems.
- The extra lights on the planets are a great idea, and they look good, though if you stare at it there is some noticeable blurriness.
- Some of the sharpening is very excessive - I think it is quite obvious even in the comparisons that the original looks better than the edit.
- The upscaled deleted scenes look very bad, though I understand that there is little to be done about that - and it was great to see it integrated anyways.
- I loved the new scene of the probe droid following, but I wish it could be a little less abrupt when Qui-gon suddenly attacks it and then is kneeling beside it. Including this scene before the desert encounter was perfect.
- I disliked the slow-motion of Anakin flying out of the exploding droid-control ship, and I would have liked to see/hear “Now this is podracing!” instead - it suits the character and the moment.
- The expanded “Duel of the Fates” footage looks a bit off, unsurprisingly, but is quite acceptable and adds to the experience.
Audio:
The audio was surprisingly seamless with all of the many trims to the movie, yet had noticeable flaws. For example, at 2:11, when the dialog is trimmed for the viceroy to say “Yes, of course… We’d be happy”, there is a noticeable blip as the music is disrupted - probably not worth it. Then there were several problems that were simply mistakes as far as I could tell.
- At 46:08, there is no sound at the moment the pitdroid is sucked into the engine.
- At 53:03, Watto’s speech is cut off as he says “it wasn’t a fair bet”.
- At 53:52, the line “Our meeting was not a coincidence” is inserted, but it sounds very low-quality and echoing.
Overall, it is an improvement on the original with some impressive work put into it, and I would really like to see an update from Dazman with a few tweaks/fixes. Maybe Dazman could release a version with just the visual fixes and extra footage as a resource for other editors (or just those scenes)?
